XN000022-1996-11-20 — Page 18

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Fraud Bill introduced in LegCo

Following is the speech by the Attorney General, the Hon Jeremy Mathews, in moving the second reading of the Fraud Bill in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):

Mr President,

I move that the Fraud Bill be read a second time.

The purpose of the Bill is to improve the existing law in respect of fraud-related crimes by creating a new statutory offence of fraud, and abolishing the existing common law offence of conspiracy to defraud, which will be replaced with a statutory conspiracy to commit the new offence of fraud.

The Bill follows recommendations contained in a report by the Law Reform Commission published in July this year, in which the Commission argued that the existing law was illogical and unsatisfactory.

It would probably come as a surprise to many to learn that there is at present in Hong Kong no general offence of fraud, either at common law or under any Ordinance. Instead what might loosely be described as fraudulent conduct is dealt with in a variety of ways.

Firstly, the Theft Ordinance creates a number of specific offences of fraud-related dishonesty, such as obtaining property by deception. But these offences, because they are drawn in very specific terms, are too restrictive and technical. Developments in modern technology have revealed serious weaknesses in these offences. For example, a recent judgement from England has shown that mortgage fraud involving the electronic transfer of money did not amount to obtaining by deception. That decision, from the highest English court, has caused much confusion and uncertainty;

Secondly, some fraudulent conduct can only be prosecuted by charging the offenders with the common law offence of conspiracy to defraud. But the trouble with this is that the essence of a conspiracy only applies to the actions of two or more persons. The actions of a single person fall outside the offence of conspiracy to defraud and are only criminal if one of specific fraud-related offences applies.

H